The cuneiform script (pronounced /kjuːˈniːəfɔrm/, /ˈkjuːnɨfɔrm/) is the earliest known form of written expression. A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. Created by the Sumerians from ca. Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar 3000 BC (with predecessors reaching into the late 4th millennium Uruk IV period^[1]), cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. Events c 3100 BC — Narmer (Menes unifies Upper and Lower Egypt into one country he rules this new country from Memphis The Uruk period (ca 4000 to 3100 BC existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, A pictogram ( also spelled pictogramme) or pictograph is a Symbol representing a Concept, object, activity place or event Over time, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract.

Cuneiforms were written on clay tablets, on which symbols were drawn with a blunt reed for a stylus. Small tablets made out of clay were used from 5500 BC Tărtăria tablets and later from 4th millennium BC onwards as a writing medium in Sumerian The musical instrument is spelled Cymbal. A symbol is something --- such as an object, Picture, written word a sound a piece Phragmites australis, the common reed, is a large perennial grass found in Wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a Writing utensil. The word is also used for a computer accessory ( PDAs) The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform ("wedge shaped").

The Sumerian script was adapted for the writing of the Akkadian, Elamite, Hittite (and Luwian), Hurrian (and Urartian) languages, and it inspired the Old Persian and Ugaritic national alphabets. Elamite is an Extinct language, which was spoken by the ancient Elamites. Hittite or Nesili is the Extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on ancient Hattusas (modern Luwian (sometimes spelled Luvian) is an extinct language of the Anatolian branch of the Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians (Khurrites a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly Urartian (also called Vannic, in older literature also "Chaldean" is the conventional name for the language spoken by the inhabitants of the ancient kingdom Old Persian cuneiform is the primary script used in Old Persian writings The Ugaritic alphabet is a Cuneiform Abjad (alphabet without vowels used from around 1500 BCE for the Ugaritic language, an extinct

Ancient Mesopotamia
Euphrates • Tigris
Cities / Empires
Sumer: Eridu • Kish • Uruk • Ur • Lagash • Nippur • Ngirsu
Elam: Susa
Akkadian Empire: Akkad • Mari
Amorites: Isin • Larsa
Babylonia: Babylon • Chaldea
Hittites • Kassites • Hurrians/Mitanni
Assyria: Assur • Nimrud • Dur-Sharrukin • Nineveh
Chronology
History of Mesopotamia
History of Sumer • Kings of Sumer
Kings of Assyria
Kings of Babylon
Mythology
Enûma Elish • Gilgamesh
Assyro-Babylonian religion
Language
Sumerian • Elamite
Akkadian • Aramaic
Hurrian • Hittite

History

The cuneiform writing system originated perhaps around 3000 BC^[2] in Sumer; its latest surviving use is dated to 75 AD. Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding The Euphrates ( ( Arabic: ar نهر الفرات; Turkish: tr Fırat Syriac: syr ܦܪܬ; Hebrew: he פרת The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great Rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of southeastern Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar Eridu (URUNUNKI; Sumerian:eridug Akkadian: ?) from the Sumerian for 'mighty place' is modern Tell Abu Shahrain, Iraq Uruk ( URU UNUG, Sumerian: unug Akkadian: uruk) from the Akkadian rendering of the Sumerian Toponym 'unug' is modern Ur ( Sumerian:urim; Akkadian: ?) is modern Tell el-Mukayyar, Iraq, and was a city in ancient Sumer. Lagash ( is modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq. Located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk Nippur (URUENLIL; Sumerian: Nibru Akkadian: Nibbur) from the Sumerian for 'lord wind' (Enlil is modern ? in Afak Al Qadisyah Ngirsu (cuneiform? Sumerian:Ĝirsu Akkadian: ?) is modern Tell Telloh, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, and it was a city of Elam is the name of an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Susa ( Biblical שושן ( Shushan) also Greek: Σοῦσα Transliterated as Sousa; Latin Susa) Mari (modern Tell Hariri, Syria) was an ancient Sumerian and Amorite city located 11 kilometers north-west of the modern town of Amorite ( Sumerian MARTU, Akkadian Tidnum or Amurrūm, Egyptian Amar, Hebrew ’emōrî Isin (modern Ishan al-Bahriyat was a city of lower Mesopotamia, which flourished during the 20th century BC. Larsa (also Larag or Larak, modern Tell as-Senkereh, Iraq, possibly the Biblical Ellasar) was an important city of Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital Babylon was a City-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which can be found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq Chaldea (from Greek grc Χαλδαία Chaldaia; Akkadian akk māt Kaldu Hebrew כשדים Kaśdim, "the Chaldees" of the The Hittites were an ancient Anatolian people who spoke a language of the Anatolian branch of the Indo-European language family and established The Kassites were an Ancient Near Eastern tribe who gained control of Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire after ca The Hurrians (also Khurrites; cuneiform Ḫu-ur-ri 𒄷𒌨𒊑 were a people of the Ancient Near East, who lived in northern Mesopotamia Mitanni ( Hittite cuneiform, also Mittani) or Hanigalbat ( Assyrian Hanigalbat Khanigalbat cuneiform) Early history The most Neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture Assur also spelled Ashur, from Assyrian Aššur, was one of the capitals of ancient Assyria. Nimrud is an ancient Assyrian city located south of Nineveh on the river Tigris. Dur-Sharrukin ("Fortress of Sargon" present day Khorsabad, was the Assyrian capital in the time of Sargon II of Assyria. Nineveh ( Akkadian: Ninua; Aramaic: ܢܝܢܘܐ Hebrew נינוה Nīnewē; Arabic نينوى Naīnuwa) See Short chronology for a timeline in absolute dates The Chronology of the Ancient Near East is a framework of dates for Ancient Mesopotamia was settled and conquered by numerous ancient Civilizations. The history of Sumer, taken to include the prehistoric Ubaid and Uruk periods spans the 5th to 3rd millennia BC ending with the downfall of the Third The Sumerian king list is an ancient text in the Sumerian language that lists kings of Sumer from Sumerian and foreign dynasties The following is a list of the kings of Babylonia, a major city and empire in ancient lower Mesopotamia, compiled from the traditional Babylonian king lists and modern Mesopotamian mythology is the collective name given to Sumerian Akkadian Assyrian and Babylonian mythologies from the land between the Tigris The akk Enûma Eliš is the Babylonian Creation myth (named for its Incipit) Gilgamesh was the son of Lugalbanda and the fifth king of Uruk (Early Dynastic II first dynasty of Uruk ruling circa 2600 BC according to the Sumerian king The pre- Christian religions of Babylonia and Assyria are the earliest attestation of Ancient Semitic religion, in particular Mesopotamian mythology Assyriology (from Greek grc Ἀσσυρίᾱ Assyriā; and grc -λογία -logia) is the archaeological historical and linguistic study Sumerian ( " native tongue " was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC Elamite is an Extinct language, which was spoken by the ancient Elamites. Aramaic is a Semitic language with Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians (Khurrites a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly Hittite or Nesili is the Extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on ancient Hattusas (modern Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar ^[3]

The cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period of more than two millennia. The image below shows the development of the sign SAG "head" (Borger nr. 184, U+12295 𒊕).

Stage 1 shows the pictogram as it was drawn around 3000 BC. Stage 2 shows the rotated pictogram as written around 2800 BC. Stage 3 shows the abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions, from ca. 2600 BC, and stage 4 is the sign as written in clay, contemporary to stage 3. Stage 5 represents the late 3rd millennium, and stage 6 represents Old Assyrian ductus of the early 2nd millennium, as adopted into Hittite. Stage 7 is the simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the early 1st millennium, and until the script's extinction.

Pictograms

Originally, pictograms were drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a pen made from a sharpened reed stylus, or incised in stone. Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained Minerals which show plasticity through a variable range of Water content, and A pen (Latin pinna, feather is a Writing instrument used to apply Ink to a surface usually Paper. Phragmites australis, the common reed, is a large perennial grass found in Wetlands throughout temperate and tropical regions of the A stylus (plural styli or styluses) is a Writing utensil. The word is also used for a computer accessory ( PDAs) This early style lacked the characteristic wedge-shape of the strokes.

Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc. , are known as "determinants", and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an Ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in Logographic scripts Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "ideographic" fashion.

From about 2900 BC, many pictographs began to lose their original function, and a given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological. Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. A determinative, also known as a taxogram or semagram, is an Ideogram used to mark semantic categories of words in Logographic scripts This process is directly parallel to, and possibly not independent of, the development of Egyptian hieroglyphic orthography. Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek

Archaic cuneiform

Sumerian inscription in monumental archaic style, ca. 26th century BCE

Letter sent by the high-priest Lu'enna to the king of Lagash (maybe Urukagina), informing him of his son's death in combat, c. Lagash ( is modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq. Located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk Urukagina (reigned ca 2380 BC &ndash 2360 BC, Short chronology) alternately rendered as Uruinimgina or Irikagina, was a ruler 2400 BC, found in Telloh (ancient Ngirsu). Ngirsu (cuneiform? Sumerian:Ĝirsu Akkadian: ?) is modern Tell Telloh, Dhi Qar Governorate, Iraq, and it was a city of

In the mid-3rd millennium, writing direction was changed to left to right in horizontal rows (rotating all of the pictograms 90° counter-clockwise in the process), and a new wedge-tipped stylus was used which was pushed into the clay, producing wedge-shaped ("cuneiform") signs; these two developments made writing quicker and easier. By adjusting the relative position of the tablet to the stylus, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. The word "cuneiform" comes from the Latin word cuneus, meaning "wedge".

Cuneiform tablets could be fired in kilns to provide a permanent record, or they could be recycled if permanence was not needed. Kilns are thermally insulated chambers or Ovens in which controlled temperature regimes are produced Many of the clay tablets found by archaeologists were preserved because they were fired when attacking armies burned the building in which they were kept.

The script was also widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honour the monument had been erected. A stele (from Greek:, stēlē, ˈstiːli plural stelae,, stēlai, ˈstiːlaɪ also found Latinised singular stela

Akkadian cuneiform

A list of Sumerian deities, ca. 2400 BC

The archaic cuneiform script was adopted by the Akkadians from ca. 2500 BC, and by 2000 BC, had evolved into Old Assyrian cuneiform, with many modifications to Sumerian orthography. The Semitic equivalents for many signs became distorted or abbreviated to form new "phonetic" values, because the syllabic nature of the script as refined by the Sumerians was unintuitive to Semitic speakers. The Semitic languages are a Language family whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East,

At this stage, the former pictograms were reduced to a high level of abstraction, and were composed of only five basic wedge shapes: horizontal, vertical, two diagonals and the Winkelhaken impressed vertically by the tip of the stylus. The signs exemplary of these basic wedges are

• AŠ (B001, U+12038) 𒀸: horizontal;
• DIŠ (B748, U+12079) 𒁹: vertical;
• GE₂₃, DIŠ tenû (B575, U+12039) 𒀹: downward diagonal;
• GE₂₂ (B647, U+1203A) 𒀺: upward diagonal;
• U (B661, U+1230B) 𒌋: the Winkelhaken. The Winkelhaken ( German for "angular hook" also simply called "hook" in English is one of five basic wedge elements appearing in the composition

Except for the Winkelhaken which is tail-less, the length of the wedges' tails could vary as required for sign composition.

Signs tilted by (ca. ) 45 degrees are called tenû in Akkadian, thus DIŠ is a vertical wedge and DIŠ tenû a diagonal one. Signs modified with additional wedges are called gunû, and signs crosshatched with additional Winkelhaken are called šešig.

Cuneiform tablet from the Kirkor Minassian collection in the US Library of Congress, ca. The Library of Congress is the De facto National library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress 24th century.

One of the Amarna letters, 14th century. The Amarna letters (sometimes "Amarna correspondence" or "Amarna tablets" are an archive of correspondence on Clay tablets mostly diplomatic

Neo-Assyrian ligature KAxGUR₇ (𒅬); the KA sign (𒅗) was a Sumerian compound marker, and appears frequently in ligatures enclosing other signs. GUR₇ is itself a ligature of SÍG. AḪ. ME. U, meaning "to pile up; grain-heap" (Akkadian kamāru; karû).

"Typical" signs have usually in the range of about five to ten wedges, while complex ligatures can consist of twenty or more (although it is not always clear if a ligature should be considered a single sign or two collated but still distinct signs); the ligature KAxGUR₇ consists of 31 strokes.

Most later adaptations of Sumerian cuneiform preserved at least some aspects of the Sumerian script. Written Akkadian included phonetic symbols from the Sumerian syllabary, together with logograms that were read as whole words. A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language Many signs in the script were polyvalent, having both a syllabic and logographic meaning. The complexity of the system bears a resemblance to classical Japanese, written in a Chinese-derived script, where some of these Sinograms were used as logograms, and others as phonetic characters. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities

Assyrian cuneiform

This "mixed" method of writing continued through the end of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires, although there were periods when "purism" was in fashion and there was a more marked tendency to spell out the words laboriously, in preference to using signs with a phonetic complement. Babylonia was an Amorite state in lower Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq) with Babylon as its capital Early history The most Neolithic site in Assyria is at Tell Hassuna, the center of the Hassuna culture Yet even in those days, the Babylonian syllabary remained a mixture of ideographic and phonetic writing.

Hittite cuneiform is an adaptation of the Old Assyrian cuneiform of ca. Hittite cuneiform refers to the implementation of Cuneiform script used in writing the Hittite language. 1800 BC to the Hittite language. Hittite or Nesili is the Extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on ancient Hattusas (modern When the cuneiform script was adapted to writing Hittite, a layer of Akkadian logographic spellings was added to the script, with the result that we no longer know the pronunciations of many Hittite words conventionally written by logograms.

In the Iron Age (ca. 10th to 6th c. BC), Assyrian cuneiform was further simplified. From the 6th century, the Assyrian language was marginalized by Aramaic, written in the Aramaean alphabet, but Neo-Assyrian cuneiform remained in use in literary tradition well into Parthian times. Aramaic is a Semitic language with The Aramaic alphabet is an Abjad, a Consonantal Alphabet, used for writing Aramaic. Parthia ( Middle Persian: اشکانیان Ashkâniân) was an Iranian civilization situated in the northeastern part of modern Iran The last known cuneiform inscription, an astronomical text, was written in AD 75. Year 75 was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Julian calendar.

Derived scripts

The complexity of the system prompted the development of a number of simplified versions of the script. Old Persian was written in a subset of simplified cuneiform characters known today as Old Persian cuneiform. The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages (besides Avestan) Old Persian cuneiform is the primary script used in Old Persian writings It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" and "king. " The Ugaritic language was written using the Ugaritic alphabet, a standard Semitic style alphabet (an abjad) written using the cuneiform method. The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern The Ugaritic alphabet is a Cuneiform Abjad (alphabet without vowels used from around 1500 BCE for the Ugaritic language, an extinct An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either An Abjad is a type of Writing system in which each symbol stands for a Consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate Vowel.

Decipherment

Early European travellers to Persepolis (Iran) noticed carved cuneiform inscriptions and were intrigued. Persepolis ( Old Persian: Pārsa, Modern Persian: تخت جمشید/پارسه Takht-e Jamshid or Chehel Minar) was the ceremonial The Englishman Sir Thomas Herbert in the 1634 edition of his travel book “A relation of some yeares travaile” reported seeing at Persepolis carved on the wall “a dozen lines of strange characters…consisting of figures, obelisk, triangular, and pyramidal” and thought they resembled Greek. However by the 1664 edition he had guessed, correctly, that they represented not letters or hieroglyphics but words and syllables, and furthermore that they were to be read from left to right. He even reproduced some for his readers. He was also correct in guessing that they were not merely decorative, but were ‘legible and intelligible’ and therefore decipherable. However, his insights never received the credit they perhaps deserved and he is never mentioned in standard histories of the decipherment of cuneiform.

Understanding of cuneiform therefore had to wait until Carsten Niebuhr brought the first copies of the inscriptions of Behistun to Europe. Carsten Niebuhr or Karsten Niebuhr ( March 17, 1733 &ndash April 26, 1815) was a German Mathematician, The Behistun Inscription (also Bisitun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون; Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the god's In 1802 Georg Friedrich Grotefend was able to read the signs. Georg Friedrich Grotefend ( June 9, 1775 - December 15, 1853) German Epigraphist, was born at Hann In1835 Henry Rawlinson, a British East India Company army officer, visited the Behistun inscriptions in Persia. Year 1835 ( MDCCCXXXV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson 1st Baronet (1810-1895 was born at Chadlington, Oxfordshire. The Behistun Inscription (also Bisitun or Bisutun, Modern Persian: بیستون; Old Persian: Bagastana, meaning "the god's For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Iran topics. Carved in the reign of King Darius of Persia (522 BC–486 BC), they consisted of identical texts in the three official languages of the empire: Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite. Darius I the Great (c 549 BC&ndash486 BC 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 Dārayavahuš: "Possessing goodness" Having ascended to power amidst controversy and bloodshed Events 529 BC — Cambyses II started to rule He is son of Cyrus II. Events By place Persian empire Egypt revolts against Persian rule The Behistun inscription was to the decipherment of cuneiform what the Rosetta Stone was to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact (حجر رشيد in Arabic which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of hieroglyphic writing Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek

Rawlinson correctly deduced that the Old Persian was a phonetic script and he successfully deciphered it. After translating the Persian, Rawlinson and, working independently of him, the Anglo-Irish Egyptologist Edward Hincks, began to decipher the others. " Anglo-Irish " was a term used historically to describe a privileged Social class in Ireland, whose members were the descendants and successors of the The Reverend Edward Hincks ( August 19, 1792 &ndash December 3, 1866) was an Irish clergyman best remembered as an Assyriologist (The actual techniques used to decipher the Akkadian language have never been fully published; Hincks described how he sought the proper names already legible in the deciphered Persian while Rawlinson never said anything at all, leading some to speculate that he was secretly copying Hincks. ^[4]) They were greatly helped by Paul Émile Botta's discovery of the city of Nineveh in 1842. Paul-Émile Botta ( December 6, 1802 – March 29, 1870) was French Consul in Mosul (then in the Ottoman Empire, now in Nineveh ( Akkadian: Ninua; Aramaic: ܢܝܢܘܐ Hebrew נינוה Nīnewē; Arabic نينوى Naīnuwa) Among the treasures uncovered by Botta were the remains of the great library of Assurbanipal, a royal archive containing tens of thousands of baked clay tablets covered with cuneiform inscriptions. Ashurbanipal ( Akkadian: Aššur-bāni-apli, " Ashur has made a son" or "Ashur created an heir" (b

By 1851, Hincks and Rawlinson could read 200 Babylonian signs. 1851 ( MDCCCLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common year They were soon joined by two other decipherers: young German-born scholar Julius Oppert, and versatile British Orientalist William Henry Fox Talbot. Julius Oppert ( July 9, 1825 - August 21, 1905) French - German Assyriologist, was born at Hamburg, William Henry Fox Talbot (11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877 was the inventor of the negative / positive photographic process the precursor to most photographic processes of In 1857 the four men met in London and took part in a famous experiment to test the accuracy of their decipherments. Edwin Norris, the secretary of the Royal Asiatic Society, gave each of them a copy of a recently discovered inscription from the reign of the Assyrian emperor Tiglath-Pileser I. Edwin Norris ( October 24, 1795 - 1872 was a British Philologist, linguist and intrepid orientalist who authored numerous The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (RAS was according to its Royal Charter of August 11, 1824 Tiglath-Pileser I (from the Hebraic form of Akkadian: Tukultī-apil-Ešarra, "my trust is in the son of Esharra " was a king A jury of experts was empanelled to examine the resulting translations and assess their accuracy. In all essential points the translations produced by the four scholars were found to be in close agreement with one another. There were of course some slight discrepancies. The inexperienced Talbot had made a number of mistakes, and Oppert's translation contained a few doubtful passages which the jury politely ascribed to his unfamiliarity with the English language. But Hincks' and Rawlinson's versions corresponded remarkably closely in many respects. The jury declared itself satisfied, and the decipherment of Akkadian cuneiform was adjudged a fait accompli.

In the early days of cuneiform decipherment, the reading of proper names presented the greatest difficulties. However, there is now a better understanding of the principles behind the formation and the pronunciation of the thousands of names found in historical records, business documents, votive inscriptions and literary productions. The primary challenge was posed by the characteristic use of old Sumerian non-phonetic ideograms in other languages that had different pronunciations for the same symbols. Until the exact phonetic reading of many names was determined through parallel passages or explanatory lists, scholars remained in doubt, or had recourse to conjectural or provisional readings. Fortunately, in many cases, there are variant readings, the same name being written phonetically (in whole or in part) in one instance, and ideographically in another.

Transliteration

Cuneiform has a specific format for transliteration. Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice Because of the script's polyvalence, transliteration is not only lossless, but may actually contain more information than the original document. In Linguistics, verb valency or valence refers to the number of arguments controlled by a verbal predicate. For example, the sign DINGIR in a Hittite text may represent either the Hittite syllable an or may be part of an Akkadian phrase, representing the syllable il, or it may be a Sumerogram, representing the original Sumerian meaning, 'the creator'. (plural ‎ or) is the Arabic for " Deity " or "god" In transliteration, a different rendition of the same glyph is chosen depending on its role in the present context.

Therefore, a text containing DINGIR and MU in succession could be construed to represent the words "ana", "ila", god + "a" (the accusative ending), god + water, or a divine name "A" or Water. The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive Someone transcribing the signs would make the decision how the signs should be read and assemble the signs as "ana", "ila", "Ila" ('god"+accusative case), etc. A transliteration of these signs, however, would separate the signs with dashes "il-a", "an-a", "DINGIR-a". This is still easier to read than the original cuneiform, but now the reader is able to trace the sounds back to the original signs and determine if the correct decision was made on how to read them.

There are differing conventions for transliterating Sumerian, Akkadian (Babylonian) and Hittite (and Luwian) cuneiform texts. One convention that sees wide use across the different fields is the use of acute and grave accents as an abbreviation for homophone disambiguation. Thus, u is equivalent to u₁, the first glyph expressing phonetic u. An acute accent, ú, is equivalent to the second, u₂, and a grave accent ù to the third, u₃ glyph in the series (while the sequence of numbering is conventional but essentially arbitrary and subject to the history of decipherment). In Sumerian transliteration, a multiplication sign 'x' is used to indicate ligatures.

Since the Sumerian language has only been widely known and studied by scholars for approximately a century, changes in the accepted reading of Sumerian names have occurred from time to time. Thus the name of a king of Ur, read Ur-Bau at one time, was later read as Ur-Engur, and is now read as Ur-Nammu or Ur-Namma; for Lugal-zaggisi, a king of Uruk, some scholars continued to read Ungal-zaggisi; and so forth. Ur ( Sumerian:urim; Akkadian: ?) is modern Tell el-Mukayyar, Iraq, and was a city in ancient Sumer. Ur-Nammu (or Ur-Namma, Ur-Engur, Ur-Gur, ca 2112-2095 BC Middle chronology) founded the Sumerian 3rd dynasty of Ur Lugal-Zage-Si ( sux-Latn lugal-zag-ge4-si = sux-Latn [[LUGAL]] Uruk ( URU UNUG, Sumerian: unug Akkadian: uruk) from the Akkadian rendering of the Sumerian Toponym 'unug' is modern Also, with some names of the older period, there was often uncertainty whether their bearers were Sumerians or Semites. If the former, then their names could be assumed to be read as Sumerian, while, if they were Semites, the signs for writing their names were probably to be read according to their Semitic equivalents, though occasionally Semites might be encountered bearing genuine Sumerian names. There was also doubt whether the signs composing a Semite's name represented a phonetic reading or an ideographic compound. Thus, e. g. when inscriptions of a Semitic ruler of Kish, whose name was written Uru-mu-ush, were first deciphered, there was a disposition to regard this as an ideographic form, and to read phonetically Alu-usharshid ("he founded a city," with the omission of the name of the deity), but scholarly opinion finally accepted Urumu-ush (Urumush) as the correct designation.

Syllabary

The tables below show signs used for simple syllables of the form CV or VC. As used for the Sumerian language, the cuneiform script was in principle capable of distinguishing 14 consonants, transliterated as

b, d, g, ḫ, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, š, t, z

as well as four vowel qualities, a, e, i, u. The Akkadian language needed to distinguish its emphatic series, q, ṣ, ṭ, adopting various "superfluous" Sumerian signs for the purpose (e. Emphatic consonant is a term widely used in Semitic Linguistics to describe one of a series of Obstruent Consonants which originally contrasted g. qe=KIN, qu=KUM, qi=KIN, ṣa=ZA, ṣe=ZÍ, ṭur=DUR etc. ) Hittite as it adopted the Akkadian cuneiform further introduced signs for the glide w, e. g. wa=we=PIN, wi₅=GEŠTIN) as well as a ligature I. A for ya.

CV:

VC:

	a-	e-	i-	u-
	a 𒀀, á 𒀉	e 𒂊, é 𒂍	i 𒄿, í=IÁ 𒐊	u 𒌋, ú 𒌑
-b	ab 𒀊, áb 𒀖	eb=IB 𒅁, éb=TUM 𒌈	ib 𒅁, íb=TUM 𒌈	ub 𒌒, úb=ŠÈ 𒂠
-d	ad 𒀜, ád 𒄉	ed=Á 𒀉	id=Á 𒀉, íd=A. É is the Sumerian for "house" or " Temple " written ideographically with the Cuneiform sign 𒂍 (Borger nr ENGUR 𒀀𒇉	ud 𒌓, úd=ÁŠ 𒀾
-g	ag 𒀝, ág 𒉘	eg=IG 𒅅, ég=E 𒂊	ig 𒅅, íg=E 𒂊	ug 𒊌
-ḫ	aḫ 𒄴, áḫ=ŠEŠ 𒋀	eḫ=AḪ 𒄴	iḫ=AḪ 𒄴	uḫ=AḪ 𒄴, úḫ 𒌔
-k	ak=AG 𒀝	ek=IG 𒅅	ik=IG 𒅅	uk=UG 𒊌
-l	al 𒀠, ál=ALAM 𒀩	el 𒂖, él=IL 𒅋	il 𒅋, íl 𒅍	ul , úl=NU 𒉡
-m	am 𒄠, ám=ÁG 𒉘	em=IM 𒅎	im 𒅎, ím=KAŠ4 𒁽	um 𒌝, úm=UD 𒌓
-n	an 𒀭	en 𒂗, én, èn=LI 𒇷	in 𒅔, in4=EN 𒂗, in5=NIN 𒊩𒌆	un 𒌦, ún=U 𒌋
-p	ap=AB 𒀊	ep=IB , ép=TUM 𒌈	ip=IB 𒅁, íp=TUM 𒌈	up=UB 𒌒, úp=ŠÈ 𒂠
-r	ar 𒅈, ár=UB 𒌒	er=IR 𒅕	ir 𒅕, íp=A. Dingir is the Sumerian for " Deity " It is written as an Ideogram in the Cuneiform script (Borger 2003 nr EN (Borger 2003 nr 164; U+ 12097 𒂗 also read ENSI) is the Sumerian Cuneiform for " Lord " or " The Sumerian word NIN ( Akkadian pronunciation EREŠ) is the sign for "lady" IGI 𒀀𒅆	ur 𒌨, úr 𒌫
-s	as=AZ 𒊍	es=GIŠ 𒄑, és=EŠ 𒂠	is=GIŠ 𒄑, ís=EŠ 𒂠	us=UZ, ús=UŠ 𒍑
-š	aš 𒀸, áš 𒀾	eš 𒌍/𒐁, éš=ŠÈ 𒂠	iš 𒅖, íš=KASKAL 𒆜	uš 𒍑, úš𒍗=BAD 𒁁
-t	at=AD 𒀜, át=GÍR gunû 𒄉	et=Á 𒀉	it=Á 𒀉	ut=UD 𒌓, út=ÁŠ 𒀾
-z	az 𒊍	ez=GIŠ 𒄑, éz=EŠ 𒂠	iz= GIŠ 𒄑, íz=IŠ 𒅖	uz , úz=UŠ 𒍑, ùz 𒍚

Sign inventories

See also: List of cuneiform signs

The Sumerian cuneiform script had of the order of 1,000 unique signs (or about 1,500 if variants are included). The following is a list of Cuneiform signs, ordered by their 2004 Borger number (MesZL This number was reduced to about 600 by the 24th century BC and the beginning of Akkadian records. Not all Sumerian signs are used in Akkadian, and not all Akkadian signs are used in Hittite.

• Falkenstein (1936) lists 939 signs used in the earliest period (late Uruk, 34th to 31st centuries)
• Borger (2003) lists 907 signs. The Uruk period (ca 4000 to 3100 BC existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia,
• Deimel (1922) lists 870 signs used in the Early Dynastic IIIa period (26th century).
• Borger in 1981 lists 598 signs used in Assyrian/Babylonian writing, and 907 in 2003. His numbering is based on Deimel's Sumerisches Lexikon.
• Rosengarten (1967) lists 468 signs used in Sumerian (pre-Sargonian) Lagash. You may be looking for the Assyrian kings Sargon I Lagash ( is modern Tell al-Hiba, Iraq. Located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers and east of Uruk
• Signs used in Hittite cuneiform are listed by Forrer (1922), Friedrich (1960) and the HZL (Rüster and Neu 1989). Hittite cuneiform refers to the implementation of Cuneiform script used in writing the Hittite language. The HZL lists a total of 375 signs, many with variants (for example, 12 variants are given for number 123 EGIR)

Unicode

Main article: Unicode cuneiform

Unicode (as of version 5. Unicode (as of version 50 assigns to the Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform script the following ranges of the Supplementary Multilingual Plane: U+12000 to U+1236E In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's 0) assigns to the Cuneiform script the following ranges:

U+12000–U+1236E (879 characters) "Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform"

U+12400–U+12473 (103 characters) "Cuneiform Numbers"

The proposal for Unicode encoding of the script had been submitted by the Initiative for Cuneiform Encoding (ICE) in June 2004. [1] The base character inventory is derived from the list of Ur III signs compiled by the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative of UCLA based on the inventories of Miguel Civil, Rykle Borger (2003), and Robert England. The Third Dynasty of Ur refers simultaneously to a 21st to 20th century BC ( Short chronology) Sumerian ruling dynasty based in the city of The University of California Los Angeles (generally known as UCLA) is a public research university located in Westwood Los Angeles, California, United Rather than opting for an ordering by glyph shape and complexity, according to the numbering of an existing catalogue, the Unicode order of glyphs is the Latin alphabet order of their 'main' Sumerian transliteration.

See also

• Journal of Cuneiform Studies
• List of cuneiform signs
• Old Persian cuneiform script
• Ugaritic alphabet

References

• R. Borger, Assyrisch-Babylonische Zeichenliste, 2nd ed. The Journal of Cuneiform Studies was founded in 1947 by the Baghdad School of the American Schools of Oriental Research. The following is a list of Cuneiform signs, ordered by their 2004 Borger number (MesZL Old Persian cuneiform is the primary script used in Old Persian writings The Ugaritic alphabet is a Cuneiform Abjad (alphabet without vowels used from around 1500 BCE for the Ugaritic language, an extinct Rykle Borger is a German Assyriologist of Dutch origin He is most famous for his cuneiform signlists , Neukirchen-Vluyn (1981)
• R. Borger, Mesopotamisches Zeichenlexikon, Münster (2003). [2]
• A. Deimel, Liste der archaischen Keilschriftzeichen (WVDOG 40; Berlin 1922) [3]
• F. Ellermeier, M. Studt, Sumerisches Glossar
  • vol. 1: 1979-1980, ISBN 3-921747-08-2, ISBN 3-921747-10-4
  • vol. 3. 2: 1998-2005, A-B ISBN 3-921747-24-4, D-E ISBN 3-921747-25-2, G ISBN 3-921747-29-5
  • vol. 3. 3: ISBN 3-921747-22-8 (font CD ISBN 3-921747-23-6)
  • vol. 3. 5: ISBN 3-921747-26-0
  • vol 3. 6: 2003, Handbuch Assur ISBN 3-921747-28-7
• A. Falkenstein, Archaische Texte aus Uruk, Berlin-Leipzig (1936) [4]
• E. Adam Falkenstein ( September 17, 1906 - October 15, 1966) was a German Assyriologist. Forrer, Die Keilschrift von Boghazköi, Leipzig (1922)
• J. Friedrich, Hethitisches Keilschrift-Lesebuch, Heidelberg (1960)
• Jean-Jacques Glassner, The Invention of Cuneiform, English translation, Johns Hopkins University Press (2003), ISBN 0-8018-7389-4.
• René Labat, Manuel d'epigraphie Akkadienne, Geuthner, Paris (1959); 6th ed. , extended by Florence Malbran-Labat (1999), ISBN 2-7053-3583-8.
• O. Neugebauer, A. Otto Eduard Neugebauer ( May 26 1899 &ndash February 19 1990) was an Austrian - American Mathematician and Sachs (eds. ), Mathematical Cuneiform Texts, New Haven (1945).
• Y. Rosengarten, Répertoire commenté des signes présargoniques sumériens de Lagash, Paris (1967) [5]
• Chr. Rüster, E. Neu, Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon (HZL), Wiesbaden (1989)
• Nikolaus Schneider, Die Keilschriftzeichen der Wirtschaftsurkunden von Ur III nebst ihren charakteristischsten Schreibvarianten, Keilschrift-Paläographie; Heft 2, Rom: Päpstliches Bibelinstitut (1935). [6]
• Wolfgang Schramm, Akkadische Logogramme, Goettinger Arbeitshefte zur Altorientalischen Literatur (GAAL) Heft 4, Goettingen (2003), ISBN 3-936297-01-0.
• F. Thureau-Dangin, Recherches sur l'origine de l'écriture cunéiforme, Paris (1898).
• Ronald Herbert Sack, Cuneiform Documents from the Chaldean and Persian Periods, (1994) ISBN 0945636679

Notes

External links

• Online Translator - Translates English words, sentences, and phrases into ancient Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian cuneiform
• Budge, E. A. Cuneiform Texts from Babylonian Tablets, &c. in the British Museum London, Harrison and Sons, 1896.
• Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative. A Joint Project of the University of California at Los Angeles and the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.
• Online interactive cuneiform tablet from the State Library of Victoria collection. The State Library of Victoria is the central Library of the state of Victoria, Australia, located in Melbourne.
• CDLI wiki
• ETCSL sign list
• Evolution of Cuneiform
• Akkadian sign list (alain. be)

Digital encoding and rendering

• cuneiformsigns.org Analysis and reports to support an international standard for computer encoding of the Cuneiform writing system
• iClay Java applet for the "interactive viewing of 2D+ images of cuneiform tablets over the Internet"

Fonts

• Unicode
  • Akkadian (reproduces the archaic (Ur III) glyphs given in the Unicode reference chart, themselves based on a font by Steve Tinney)
  • A free Cuneiform font, Cuneiform Composite, also Ur III. Designed by Steve Tinney with input from Michael Everson. Michael Everson (born January 9, 1963) is a linguist, script encoder, typesetter, and Font designer.
  • FreeIdgSerif (branched off FreeSerif), encodes some 390 Old Assyrian glyphs used in Hittite cuneiform. Free UCS Outline Fonts (also known as freefont) is a project for developing fonts by collecting characters from other free fonts and joining them in one package
• non-Unicode
  • Cuneiform fonts for TeX/LaTeX/PDFLaTeX by Karel Piska (Type 1, GPL)
  • Ullikummi (Hittite package) by Sylvie Vanséveren (TrueType, freeware)
  • UR III font by Guillaume Malingue (TrueType, freeware)
  • Sumerian font by Carsten Peust (TrueType, freeware)